Symptom · Viking built-in refrigeration
Why does it trip the breaker or GFCI?
In one sentence
Something in the cabinet is letting current go where it should not, and a breaker that goes a second time is not a nuisance to reset: switch it off, leave it off, let someone meter it. — Viking Repair Denver Pros, (720) 903-2603
What it usually turns out to be
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A starting component has failed short
Where your unit has a discrete start relay and overload protector, they live in the hardest place in the machine: hot, shaken all day, and carrying the heaviest current the cabinet draws. When one breaks down inside, it can put a near-direct path across the supply for the instant it is asked to work, and the breaker sees that before you hear anything. Tripping at the moment the cooling tries to start, rather than at random, points here first.
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The compressor cannot turn
A motor that is stalled keeps calling for its starting surge and never gets under way, so the draw stays high instead of falling off after a second or two. Sometimes the overload protector catches that and you get clicking; sometimes the breaker is quicker. Either way the cabinet has stopped cooling, and a pump that will not turn is one of the few faults here that reaches the sealed system.
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A heating element is leaking to ground
There are heaters inside a refrigerator, and the defrost heater is the main one. An element whose insulation has broken down lets current find the metal around it, which is what a GFCI — the outlet device watching for current going astray — exists to catch. So a leaky element often takes the outlet out while an ordinary breaker holds. The clue is timing: it goes at intervals through the day rather than when the cooling starts.
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The fault is not in the refrigerator
Not everything that trips in a kitchen is the appliance nearest the panel. Another load sharing the circuit, one GFCI protecting several outlets, or damaged wiring will all take the refrigerator down with them, and none of that is cured by working on the cabinet. There is a test in the questions below that separates the two, worth doing before you book anybody.
What that means for your kitchen
Two practical things while you wait. Reset once and no more: if the protection goes again it is telling you something a third attempt will not change, and each try sends another surge through whatever is failing. Then move the food, because a cabinet standing off overnight empties itself, and the contents are often worth more than the repair. If it will not hold at all, leave the breaker open, get the food into coolers, and ring Viking Repair Denver Pros on (720) 903-2603.
Follow-up questions
Is it safe to keep resetting it until someone can get here?
No. The breaker is not being awkward, it is doing the only job it has, and every reset puts the fault back onto the wiring. Reset it once, in case what happened was a genuine one-off. If it goes a second time, leave it off, keep the door shut and call (720) 903-2603.
Could it be the outlet rather than the refrigerator?
It could, and that is what the single reset is best spent on. Take everything else off the circuit first, then close the breaker once and watch. Going out with the refrigerator as the only load points at the cabinet; going out with nothing running at all points at the wiring, which is an electrician's job rather than ours.
Parts usually involved
These are the components tested on this symptom, in the order they get tested.
- Written by
- Clifford Nakamura
- Role
- Service technician — controls and intermittent faults
- Last checked